Usman Khawaja won’t wear Palestine conflict slogan shoes in Perth Test; ICC rule explained

Usman Khawaja will not wear shoes with messages highlighting the plight of people in Gaza in Australia’s first Test against Pakistan which begins on Thursday. Australian opener Khawaja’s shoes carried the slogans “Freedom is a human right” and “All lives are equal” at the training session on Tuesday. The batter had confirmed to an Australian daily that he was going to wear the same shoes during the Test match, but captain Pat Cummins has now announced that Khawaja has changed his mind.

I spoke to him just quickly and he said he won’t be,” Cummins said on Wednesday. “Just kind of drew attention to the ICC rules, which I don’t know if Uzzie (Khawaja) was across beforehand.

“Uzzie doesn’t want to make too big of a fuss.”

Khawaja had recently shared a video a video on Instagram from UNICEF from Gaza.

In his post, he wrote: “Do people not care about innocent humans being killed?

“Or is it the colour of their skin that makes them less important? Or the religion they practise?

“These things should be irrelevant if you truly believe that ‘we are all equal’.”

Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has said in a statement that it supported “the right of our players to express personal opinions, but ICC rules prohibit display of personal messages.

“The ICC has rules in place which prohibit the display of personal messages, which we expect the players to uphold,” CA said.

In 2014, England all-rounder Moeen Ali was banned by the ICC for wearing wristbands reading “Save Gaza” and “Free Palestine” during a Test.

What are the ICC rules?

The ICC rules due to which Khawaja has been forced to change his stance say that a player cannot display a personal message and the match official can prohibit such a cricketer from taking the field.

In Khawaja’s case, there was a danger of the match referee prohibiting him from taking the field in case he decided to wear the shoes carrying a message in support of the Palestinian people.

“Any clothing or equipment that does not comply with these regulations is strictly prohibited,” ICC’s regulations state. “In particular, no logo shall be permitted to be displayed on cricket clothing or cricket equipment, other than a national logo, a commercial logo, an event logo, a manufacturer’s logo, a player’s bat logo, a charity logo or a non-commercial logo as provided in these regulations.

“In addition, where any match official becomes aware of any clothing or equipment that does not comply with these regulations, he shall be authorised to prevent the offending person from taking the field of play (or to order them from the field of play, if appropriate) until the non-compliant clothing or equipment is removed or appropriately covered up.”